Guilty DM problems

[TrueJordan]

So I've been DMing lately. And I just feel so bad when I leave people out of combat. For example, I feel especially bad for out beguiler, who in the last campaign barely fought at all. The first battle had some Cthulian beast, who, if you use detect thoughts and fail a will save, you go insane for 1d4 rounds. Which our beguiler promptly tried to do and failed his will save (he didn't know what would happen, he just tried to read his mind) and rolled a 4, so he was under the spell confusion for 4 rounds. Which is the amount of time it took to kill the beast. The next encounter was against a Beholder, which has a great will save and the beguiler again couldn't do much... (Side note, has anyone noticed that you can take down a beholder pretty easily if you grapple it with like, anyone? a +12 to grapple at CR 13 is kinda a joke when you can just summon a boa constrictor to grapple it on the 2nd round...)
Anyway, I gave the beguiler equal experience, of course, and it's not like he's unhelpful out of battle, but it seems to be a recurring theme, with the PCs fighting guys and him not really being able to do so much. I feel so bad for him. Same goes for our Paladin, to a lesser extent. The Fighter and Rouge actually do most of the damage, with the wizard kinda derping around, but that's becasue he's a derp.

Have these feelings of guilt conflicted anyone else? Is there anything I could do to make him 'on the level' of the other PCs? Thanks

[fishyfishyfishy]

Ok firstly, Beholders have plenty of answers to grapples and summoned creatures. Antimagic cone will cause summoned creatures to wink out of existence and there is nothing stopping them from floating up as high as they like every round and spamming the grappler with eye rays until they die or fall off. Seriously...grappling a Beholder is suicide for anyone not prepared for their entire list of abilities. And if they are, why would they waste time grappling it?

To answer your immediate concern, have you tried using social encounters? Beguilers excel at persuasion and infiltration type missions. The player could also try using some illusions for battle field control. Silent Image can easily create an illusion of a wall or something, and unless the enemy had ranks in spell craft, or they interact with the wall in some way, they'll be inclined to think it's real.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Combat is normally not where a beguiler shines anyways. I have the same problem much of the time (particularly since a lot of your spell list has mind affecting spells). I have one beguiler going into shadowcraft mage and another have a massive Wis and pick up the City domain via Arcane Disciple.

[TrueJordan]

Ok firstly, Beholders have plenty of answers to grapples and summoned creatures. Antimagic cone will cause summoned creatures to wink out of existence and there is nothing stopping them from floating up as high as they like every round and spamming the grappler with eye rays until they die or fall off. Seriously...grappling a Beholder is suicide for anyone not prepared for their entire list of abilities. And if they are, why would they waste time grappling it?

...Oh. Well the reason he didn't float so high is because he was summoned in a room with a lowish ceiling (long story). As for the antimagic cone, my group, along with the book's implication, made me think that the cone would negate any of its rays as well. Is that not the case?
Additionally, lets say he was grappled by the fighter. He'd have to make a whole bunch of concentration checks, and he doesn't have any ranks in it, so he'd probably fail most of them. Am I doing this wrong? I hate grappling rules.


Combat is normally not where a beguiler shines anyways. I have the same problem much of the time (particularly since a lot of your spell list has mind affecting spells). I have one beguiler going into shadowcraft mage and another have a massive Wis and pick up the City domain via Arcane Disciple.

To answer your immediate concern, have you tried using social encounters? Beguilers excel at persuasion and infiltration type missions. The player could also try using some illusions for battle field control. Silent Image can easily create an illusion of a wall or something, and unless the enemy had ranks in spell craft, or they interact with the wall in some way, they'll be inclined to think it's real.

I have done out of combat scenarios, but almost always the paladin, with his great charisma or the skillmonkey rouge with his own +20 to bluff or slight of hand or hide /what have you basically outshine him there as well. I think he totally forgot about the silent image, I'll gently remind him what BFC he has. Thanks, guys.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Toss him a Runestaff (MiC) or some Knowstones (Dragon Magazine, I think) with some combat spells that don't require will saves. A couple spells that work on things with high saves or immunity to mind-affecting abilities will go a long way towards helping him out. (If you really want to boost him, nudge him towards a one-level dip in Sandshaper to add about a bazillion spells to his list of spells known).

The paladin is probably going to have bigger problems eventually, since his class is just so much weaker. Aside from the usual "nice items for him and his mount," not sure how to help without more build details, and possibly some rebuilding or houseruling.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Fist of Raziel and Bone Knight come to mind as PrCs that can really give some oomph to a lagging paladin.

[XionUnborn01]

I think the problem is you have classes stepping all over each other's toes. Rogue, Paladin, and Beguiler can all be a face, and it sounds like they're all trying to be to a certain extent.

Rogue and Beguiler are both massive skillmonkeys and it sounds like they're both specializing in the same things.

This leaves the Beguilers spells. While they have a good spell list, outside of combat they will find themselves without a whole lot to do if they can't party face or skill out. I'd suggest taking a good look at all the character sheets involved and figure out where the beguiler can shine without the paladin and rogue interfering.

[Maginomicon]

...Oh. Well the reason he didn't float so high is because he was summoned in a room with a lowish ceiling (long story). As for the antimagic cone, my group, along with the book's implication, made me think that the cone would negate any of its rays as well. Is that not the case?Since he can turn on and off his antimagic cone at will IIRC, he can wink out the summoned creature and fire his rays in a direction other than the cone (the antimagic cone comes from his main eye, and the rays are fired from the tentacles).

[fishyfishyfishy]

...Oh. Well the reason he didn't float so high is because he was summoned in a room with a lowish ceiling (long story). As for the antimagic cone, my group, along with the book's implication, made me think that the cone would negate any of its rays as well. Is that not the case?
Additionally, lets say he was grappled by the fighter. He'd have to make a whole bunch of concentration checks, and he doesn't have any ranks in it, so he'd probably fail most of them. Am I doing this wrong? I hate grappling rules.

I'm away from my books, and the Beholder does not appear in the SRD. So I could be remembering this incorrectly, but I'm fairly certain that the Beholders eye rays are spell like abilities, and thus have no verbal or somatic components. They are purely mental actions that don't require concentration to be used in a grapple. Also, the antimagic cone does not completely block the eye rays. Only the area the cone covers would be blocked.

[Zirconia]

Additionally, lets say he was grappled by the fighter. He'd have to make a whole bunch of concentration checks, and he doesn't have any ranks in it, so he'd probably fail most of them.

The beholder's eye rays are Supernatural, which don't provoke attacks of opportunity or require Concentration checks to use. It could have Charm Monstered the snake, since if it were grappling parts of it would be in a different quadrant than the party, and turned it on the party, while still using its other 3 eyes on the party.